RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Traotarianism
subjects. The absolute truth is given objectively; the function of thought or spirit is not speculative inquiry but the interpretation of authoritative dogma given by the primitive Church. The Scriptures are held in a general sense only to be the rule of faith; but they require exegesis because of their manifold meaning, and supplementing because of their incompleteness. Valuable for right doctrine, they contain practically nothing concerning church discipline, liturgy, and government, and must be explained by tradition, which preceded the New Testament and formed the canon. They must be supplemented by the uniform consensus of the Fathers, the Roman Catholic bishops, and the ecumenical councils. For example, the witness of the entire Church at Nicsea determined the doctrine of the Trinity as true according to Scripture for the entire Church, whether understood or not. The Church is the sole divinely appointed authority for the interpretation of the Scriptures, the mediator of the doctrine and grace of the sacraments, and the total organic spring and norm of all its activities in liturgy, organization, and discipline. Presented as the original, generic, prophetic type, the Church is to be an object, like Word and sacrament, of reverent awe, the absolute foundation of all truth, even in the deeper mysteries and symbolic interpretations in which the entire teaching is not always revealed, thus leading, among the more advanced wing, to a distinction between exoteric and esoteric truth. Established on the apostolic foundation in faith and practise, the Church is the source of grace for all ages. This grace is communicated alone through the objective power of the sacraments. The only way to salvation is through the acceptance of the Eucharist, the efficacy of which depends on its ministration by the priest in virtue of his power derived by the succession of the bishops from the apostles, whereby the perpetuation and right dispensation of the sacrament are guaranteed.
This doctrine of the apostolic succession was central to all the factions of the movement in common, from its inception to its ultimate issues. Pronounced the arch-pillar of the priestly office, the
defense against the encroachment of 3. Apostolic the power of the State upon the Church Succession, made it of necessity the ecclesiastical
bulwark. Assumed to be implied in the ancient Anglican formula of ordination, it was brought to the front by the Tractarians in their resistance to the State. The gift depends on the laying on of hands and not on any formula attending the act, nor is it necessarily involved in the overseeing function of the episcopate, seeing that the apostles conferred it upon priests and deacons also. Therefore, to avoid, in consequence of this statement, the claim advanced by non-episcopal communions, the Oxford school maintained that history shows that from the apostolic age to the Reformation, and from that time in all true churches, ordination has been given by bishops. Nor is this succession merely a following in preaching, ministration of the sacraments, and the power of the keys, but a holy gift (Keble), preserved through time by the apostolic succession alone and its essen-
tial significance (Froude). Whoever is not a link in this chain has no right either to the office or to the administration of the sacrament. Inasmuch as the commission of Christ alone gives efficacy to Word and sacrament, this teaching leads further to the doctrine of the sole and necessary mediatorship of the priesthood between Christ and believers, and to the distinction between the clergy and the laity. The Oxford school sought to demonstrate also the historical continuity of the State Church from the apostles. The proof in individual detail being relinquished as impossible, it was replaced, historically, by the argument of probability found to be in the ratio of 8,000 to one, and dogmatically by Newman's theory of knowledge, that theoretical, inadequate probability becomes certainty by the supplement of the assumption of faith. Admitting that away from the proofs of reason and the facts of history and experience, the argument of emotional probability lends itself alike to faith and superstition, Newman finally converts it to one of positive authority, construing I Cor. xi. 23-24 in the sense that Christ conferred on the disciples as priests the gift of consecration. Linking this with the promotion of Titus and Timothy as bishops and the episcopate in the primitive Church, he thought that he had established the absolute necessity of episcopal consecration, falling back on the authority of the Church where Scripture was insufficient. To sum up, the sacrament is the material principle to which the Church is the correlate means or formal principle, representing the mediatorship of Christ. Fundamental and supreme is the principle of the sacrament as the sole means of saving grace. The visible Church assures participation in the invisible, and without the former there is no salvation; but, in turn, the essential mark of the true Church, inclusive of catholicity, apostolicity, and autonomy, is the apostolic succession. Hence the Anglican is the most perfect on earth. The Roman Catholic has the apostolic communion but has departed from the apostolic tradition (papal power and infallibility). The Greek Church has preserved this communion and doctrine more purely. Other episcopal churches, beside the Anglican, are healthy branches, while the non-episcopal churches, or sects, are amputated limbs, which may have retained the apostolic teaching or not, yet possess no apostolic office and no means of salvation.
The sacramental doctrine of the Oxford movement starting upon the basis of the Anglican Confession is an attempt to extend and deepen the Roman Catholic by strong emphasis upon regeneration. To the Calvinistic conception defined in the catechism, that the sacraments are effectual testimonies of divine grace, was opposed that they were the channels which conduct divine grace to the soul, closed by unbelief and opened by faith. Both sacraments are essentially one, natural man being regenerated through baptism, and this new 4. The life being developed by the Eucharist, Sacraments; so that, as Pusey and Newman state,
Baptism, they form the sole means or rites of
justification for atonement. Those
who allege that the new spiritual life is due to the
act of faith, not to the gift of God in the sacrament,
Tractarianism Tradition